Why your business should be using Google Discovery Ads

Effective advertising is all about getting the right message in front of the right customer at the right time, and understanding and playing to customer intent. It sounds simple enough, but in reality it is anything but.

Unless you get a bit of help from Google.

Google Discovery Ads is a new ad type designed to put your name up in lights during the early stages of the customer journey. These ad campaigns can be particularly effective at generating brand awareness and steering the audience down a path that leads to your business.

What are Google Discovery Ads, how do they work, and should you be using them? In this guide we’ll answer all those questions and more.

Google Discovery Ads are visually rich, personalised ads that are displayed across three key Google platforms: the Google app, the YouTube app and the Gmail app. This ad type uses machine learning to read subtle signals from the user which helps to paint a picture of their intent. Google then uses this information to serve up ads to the right user at the best possible moment.

The key to Google Discovery Ads is right there in the name. These ads are designed to reach the audience during the ‘discovery’ phase of the buyer journey: the moment at which they’re most open to learning about new products, services and brands.

This ad type is highly visual, designed to effectively catch the eye of the target audience to drive conversions. Discovery Ads can display as single images or as carousel ads.

In Google’s namesake search app Discovery Ads appear in the Discover feed, as single or carousel images with accompanying text. They’re marked with a small ‘Ad’ tag in the bottom left corner.

You’ll find Discovery Ads on the home feed of your YouTube app, where they are once again displayed as single or carousel images marked with a small ‘Ad’ tag in the bottom left corner.

Discovery Ads display slightly differently in the Gmail app. They appear as unread emails, marked with ‘Ad’, in your Social or Promotion tabs. If you click on one you’ll be taken to the ad, which will be formatted similarly to an email.

Now that we know what a Google Discovery Ad is, let’s understand why you might choose to use this ad format. According to Google, Discovery Ads offer a number of rather unique benefits:

All you need to do as an advertiser is give Google the building blocks of your ads (compelling headlines, logos and imagery), choose an automated bidding strategy (maximise conversions, Target CPA, target ROAS, etc), then let Google’s AI and machine learning technology do the rest. Google will build ads that are eye-catching, and will showcase them in the right places, and in a way that is most likely to spark customer interest.

Google display ads are highly tuned to reach the relevant audience at the right time. When they’re shown in places like the Google discover feed, they need to speak to people who may not yet be aware of your brand or product. Discovery Ads are carefully crafted to do exactly that, by offering the richest and most relevant ad content to an audience that is likely to want what you offer.

The sheer size of the audience that Google has access to ensures that it can get in front of the exact customer that you’re targeting. According to Google a Discovery Ad campaign can reach up to three billion people across the Google, YouTube and Gmail app feeds. Amongst that number there’s likely to be a group of potential customers that are highly receptive to your message, and Google is masterful at finding this audience and delivering high conversion messages to them.

All in all, a Discovery Ad campaign can help you to reach new and interested customers, with minimal effort, and while working within the budget you choose to set (though the larger the spend, the healthier the results tend to be). These campaigns will:

• Increase brand awareness: Get your products, service or brand in front of your target audience at the precise moment when they’re open to discovering something new.
• Drive conversions: Increase the number of conversions and optimise your conversion rate, whether website visits, subscriptions, sales or anything else.
• Power your remarketing efforts: Discovery campaigns don’t have to be about discovery at all! A savvy marketer might use these ads for remarketing purposes – you can reconnect with an audience who already knows your brand, and who might be considering a purchase.

The first step is to create the copy (headline, description, CTA, URL) and imagery (landscape, square or portrait images, your business logo) that will feature in your campaign. It’s important to think of these assets as a set of building blocks, as that’s exactly how Google will treat them – the assets you provide for each ad will be used interchangeably within that ad.

Before setting up the campaign, consider how much you’re willing to spend per day. Generally speaking the more you spend, the greater the likelihood that you’ll see a return, though this is only true to a point, and the last thing you want to do is overspend. A good rule of thumb is to set a daily budget that can cover at least 10x your target CPA bid.

Begin by logging into your Google Ads account and enabling sitewide tagging and conversion tracking, as this allows you to track and analyse campaign performance. Once that’s done, navigate to the menu, click on ‘Campaigns’, and follow this process:

1. Click the plus button (+) and select New campaign.
2. Choose a marketing objective that the campaign will be optimised for: Sales, Leads, Website traffic or No goal.
3. Choose Discovery campaign, then choose your preferred campaign subtype: Standard Discovery campaign
   or Discovery campaign with product feeds.
4. In Discovery Conversion Selection choose the conversion goal that best suits your campaign.
5. Select the location/s and language/s you’re looking to target.
6. Choose your bidding strategy and your average daily budget.
7. Choose the audience segments you’d like to target.
8. Upload your creative assets and set up your single image and carousel ads.
9. Go live with your campaign.

Google Ads uses machine learning to optimise Discovery Ad campaigns. In the first two weeks you’ll probably notice fluctuations in performance, and if performance is down it can be tempting to jump in and try to correct it.

But these fluctuations are a normal part of the process – it’s simply the algorithm testing out different strategies and optimising for those that perform best. Google refers to this initial two weeks as the ‘Learning period’, and may even mark your bid strategy as such. After two weeks this ‘learning’ status will elapse, and you’re free to make changes should you wish, although you need to be careful not to undo the work done by the algorithm over the fortnight prior.

Between different ad formats, campaign types, bidding strategies and more, Google Ads can feel complicated. Sure, you can set up your own Google Discovery Ad campaign, but if you don’t have deep knowledge of the Google ecosystem, it may not deliver the results it otherwise could – which is why so many organisations invest in professional help.

At Traction Marketing we’ve spent years helping Kiwi businesses capitalise on Google Ads and get more for their marketing money, and we’re ready to use our deep knowledge and expertise to help you to unlock the power of Discovery Ads.

If you’re looking to elevate your Google Ads game with a Discovery campaign, we’d love to help. Get in touch with our friendly team today.